Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Free of faith's false promise
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Jerome Schleifer
Schleifer is a retired businessman living in Roanoke.
At times I wish I still had religion; wished I believed in God or a deity that, upon confession, would forgive my misdeeds. My conscience, vastly more demanding than religious dogma, relentlessly nags when I've transgressed against my fellow man, not allowing me to take refuge in an unseen deity or absolve me from wrongdoings.
Having confidence in my sense of right and wrong, I try not to commit transgressions against my fellow man. This is not to say I am free of wrongdoings. Ignoring the ailments of those I have the power to alleviate constitutes wrongs. Worse is passing judgment on another when I have not walked in his or her shoes.
Being cognizant that death awaits, religionists believe that life has a purpose, and that purpose is directed by God. The Presbyterians call this phenomenon predestination. This is a uniqueness I find difficult to accept, either in a God-given or evolutionistic sense. Accepting that man has a predetermined destination would mean being persuaded that the Earth's thousands upon thousands of living creatures are equally born for a purpose.
Believers confront me with what if. "What if you do come before God and face his judgment?" My response, "What if there is no afterlife?" It's ironic that so many believers associate what if in terms of death, but not life. What if one gives up the fullness of life while pondering on death? Life is not a dress rehearsal.
I find it both amusing and disturbing when believers accuse nonbelievers of lacking moral fiber. What greater hypocrisy than that displayed in the 2000 elections, when upwards of 50 percent of those mouthing "family values'' were, or will be, divorced. And it is that singularly selfish designation of "family values" that has been used so maliciously to corrupt the political landscape. Before the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount, both moral and immoral inhabited the Earth, and they will continue to do so long after those admonitions have been forgotten.
Having been an elder and teacher in the Presbyterian Church, I'm familiar with the social value of belonging; the need for people to seek companionship and, of late, entertainment by electric guitar-wielding, gyrating "message givers." But I also saw the church as a money-grubbing, fear-mongering institution that prospered by appealing to emotions at the expense of intellectual pursuit. No wonder Karl Marx referred to religion as the "opiate of the people'' when he rebelled against those discouraging examination of scientific studies contradictory to church dogma.
My argument, though, is not just with religious fanatics; it's against all religions that ascribe to an unseen deity. Religions advance the view that, in effect, says, "I know what I do not know." All of mankind, with no exceptions, is aware that a pie-in-the-sky heaven has never been materially revealed. Monotheistic religions differ only in an altered concept from those of the ancients who worshipped and gave sacrifices to a profusion of gods, those pagan ceremonies and similar rites that today we readily recognize as mythical.
And then there's faith, the bottom line of religious belief. But what is faith in a belief that has nothing more to offer than an assumption; a presupposition that somewhere out in the great beyond there exist many mansions? Isn't the theory of evolution, whose workings are continually evident (if one bothers to research), more convincing than a supposition? Arguable are the many facets of evolution, but how can one argue or even intelligently discuss intangibles: nothings?
Remove the emotional crutch of religion, and humans will free themselves of the innumerable dogmas that hinder honest evaluation of such subjects as abortion, politics or homosexuality. One no longer has to live a life of hypocrisy; feigning piety one hour a week and true to secularism the remaining hours.
A young seminary student solemnly suggested that in my heart, somewhere down in its deep recesses, I'm truly aware of God's existence.
I replied that my heart doesn't know a thing; it's merely a muscle. It's my brain, that piece of gray matter that gives me the ability to separate rationality from irrationality, that tells me just because billions believe in a supreme being, merely believing does not make it truth. Or, as Thoreau philosophized, "If, in my mind, I am correct in my thinking, then even if the rest of the world disagrees with me, I am not a minority, but a majority of one."
